Friend or foe: what world leaders think of Liz Truss
She has caused uproar by questioning whether the French president, Emmanuel Macron, is a trusted ally and pursued a policy in Northern Ireland that has upset the White House.
Should Liz Truss become prime minister on 5 September, she will come with some unhelpful baggage to the top table on the international stage at a fraught time.
The challenges will come thick and fast. From the war in Ukraine, the global energy crisis and the urgent calls for more and deeper action on the climate crisis, the world is looking for leadership from the major economies, of which Britain remains one.
Within weeks of arriving in Downing Street, Truss will address the UN general assembly in New York, and then she will travel to Bali in November for a meeting of the leading 20 world economies, the G20.
From Brussels and Beijing to Canberra and Kyiv, Washington and Tokyo to Paris and Moscow, here is how the world’s major capitals view the frontrunner to succeed Boris Johnson.
The Biden administration is well aware that Liz Truss is no ideological bedfellow and that she has carefully cultivated connections with the Republicans, but on US foreign policy priorities, confronting and containing China and Russia, there is confidence in Washington that she will be a reliable ally.
The multinational effort to arm Ukraine and Aukus, the trilateral security pact in the Pacific that also includes Australia, have become the key arenas where the transatlantic alliance is being put to the test. The UK is second only to the US as an arms supplier to Ukraine, and the administration is hopeful that support will be maintained and even stepped up under Truss.
There was also appreciation of her firm line on Taiwan and her vocal support for this month’s visit there by
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